Genua labant, gelidus concrevit frigore sanguis.
Tum lapis ipse, viri vacuum per inane volutus,
Nec spatium evasit totum, nec pertulit ictum[5].
For my part, I would wish no other revenge, either for myself, or the rest of the poets, from this rhyming judge of the twelve-penny gallery, this legitimate son of Sternhold, than that he would subscribe his name to his censure, or (not to tax him beyond his learning) set his mark: For, should he own himself publicly, and come from behind the lion's skin, they, whom he condemns, would be thankful to him, they, whom he praises, would chuse to be condemned; and the magistrates, whom he has elected, would modestly withdraw from their employment, to avoid the scandal of his nomination[6]. The sharpness of his satire, next to himself, falls most heavily on his friends, and they ought never to forgive him for commending them perpetually the wrong way, and sometimes by contraries. If he have a friend, whose hastiness in writing is his greatest fault, Horace would have taught him to have minced the matter, and to have called it readiness of thought, and a flowing fancy; for friendship will allow a man to christen an imperfection by the name of some neighbour virtue;
Vellem in amicitiâ sic erraremus; et isti
Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum.
But he would never have allowed him to have called a slow man hasty, or a hasty writer a slow drudge[7], as Juvenal explains it:
—Canibus pigris, scabieque vetustâ
Lævibus, et siccæ lambentibus ora lucernæ,
Nomen erit, Pardus, Tygris, Leo; si quid adhuc est